Effective management of estuarine crocodiles in Queensland is essential for ensuring public safety. This study aimed to improve our knowledge of human–crocodile conflict in Queensland and how this has changed over time. By understanding historical trends, we provide the basis for improved crocodile management into the future.

Camera traps are widely used in wildlife surveys but assessing their limitations is important. We compared the efficacy of four camera models to detect mammals and birds and found that detections varied between models and that all camera models failed to detect a substantial proportion of animal visits. Variation in camera performance needs to be taken into consideration when designing or comparing camera surveys, especially if multiple models are used.

Commercial pine plantations in the Mpumalanga region of South Africa are experiencing escalating levels of baboon-caused damage, and no effective control measures have been found to date. The ecological-risk model presented herein indicates that susceptibility to baboon damage is determined by pine stand characteristics and unrelated to the surrounding environment. The present study allows for the quantification of the potential risk posed by baboon damage towards the development of an effective integrated management strategy. Photograph by M. E. Light.

After more than 50 years of studying brushtail possums in Australia and New Zealand, we still do not have a clear understanding of their home-range dynamics. By using a large trapping dataset in the Orongorongo Valley, we found that in addition to density, age and sex are consistent determinants of possum home-range size. This finding suggests that males, owing to their behaviour, may be the primary drivers of TB transmission in possum wild population.

Knowledge about the ecological requirements of Norway rats in livestock farms is necessary to improve management actions on this pest and consequently decrease animal and human health risk. We present a fine-scale description of habitat use and movement patterns of this species. Control effort should be placed near animal and food sheds, water sources, and in sites that provide refuge. Photographs by D. P. Montes de Oca and R. Lovera.

Bird activity in vineyards can reduce or enhance crop yields. We examined the effectiveness of providing artificial perches to encourage predatory birds into vineyards to scare grape-eating species. Grapevines near perches received >50% less damage than control sites, possibly owing to the presence of Australian magpies (Cracticus tibicen). Therefore, perches are a potentially useful approach to reducing damage to grape crops. Photograph by Rebecca K. Peisley.

Public participation in wildlife management is needed for understanding and reducting human–wildlife conflicts. We investigated which factors affect the public willingness to participate in crow management, and found that the moderator variable education had the highest impact. By educating about skills for participation in crow management and about importance to participate, we can change public attitudes and beliefs, and convince public to help in crow management.

Wetland creation is a common tool used to offset wetland losses, but do created wetlands provide natural wetland functions, such as providing habitat for the successful breeding of amphibians? In this study we compared the reproductive success of amphibians in created wetlands and found that it was similar to natural wetlands. These results suggest that created wetlands may provide adequate wildlife habitat and thus may function similar to natural wetlands.

Sound understanding of trends in wildlife populations is required for assessing their status and for effective conservation and management. The aim of this study was to update information on the current size of the isolated dugong population of New Caledonia. While the latest estimates show a stabilisation of the dugong population at the low thousand, the study highlights the importance of replicating baseline surveys to enable robust interpretation of temporal variation in population size estimates.

Identifying high-quality Gunnison sage-grouse habitat is critical to successful conservation and recovery of this threatened species. We identified seasonal habitat preferred by Gunnison sage-grouse and found our more refined models more accurately reflected reality than the critical habitat designation currently being used for species recovery. Using a hierarchical approach to identify critical habitat with higher quality data when available may provide a better alternative to generalizations for threatened and endangered species.

One-fifth of mammal species are at risk of extinction in the wild, and more research is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of protected areas in achieving conservation objectives. Therefore, I evaluated the effectiveness of conservation objectives in the Lar Protected Area (LPA) in northern Iran by documenting the spatial and temporal distribution of seven large- and medium-sized mammals and humans with camera traps and determined the areas and seasons most used by poachers that will definitely be useful for improving the conservation of focal species in the LPA. Photograph by Jamshid Parchizadeh.

Despite evidence of the harm that land clearing causes to individual animals, such harm is either ignored or considered only indirectly in environmental decision-making. The clearing of native vegetation kills many of the animals present and causes injuries and other conditions that are physically painful and psychologically stressful. Environmental decision-makers should identify and evaluate the harm that proposed clearing actions will cause.

It is vital to understand what times and places are important to animals, but determining these can be challenging to research and conservation efforts. We show that the SaTScan is effective for quickly identifying peaks in bat activity. SaTScan is a valuable tool for understanding and studying bat activity and has potential for many more uses in ecology.

Koalas are virtually invisible in forests because they are solitary animals in large home ranges containing thousands of trees. Radiotracking studies at Eden showed that lack of sightings should not necessarily cause concern. However, sightings are rapidly increasing in an area of declining forest where further tracking would improve our understanding of historic irruptions and declines throughout the koala’s range.